Prequels, sequels, and spinoffs are an integral part of building out a successful cinematic universe, especially in the case of a writer as prolific Stephen King. Pet Sematary: Bloodlines is a prequel to King’s novel released in 1983 rather than the films. Bloodlines specifically focuses on the little-known story of Timmy Baterman (Jack Mulhern) which was barely alluded to in the novel in a few pages. This allowed screenwriter and director Lindsey Anderson Beer (Chaos Walking, Sierra Burgess Is A Loser) to flex her creative muscles with co-writer Jeff Buhler (Pet Sematary, The Prodigy) and craft a story.
“I just kept re-reading the book and looking for things to pull from it to expand on Timmy Baterman’s story to tell an origin story for Ludlow through the lens of Jud Crandall’s (Jackson White) experience with him. The book says Timmy is the reason that the evil was targeting Jud his whole life,” states Beer.
The Pet Sematary universe is peppered with questions of how the curse came about with few answers. “I was so intrigued by the world. There’s a lot of stuff in the book that’s hinted at, but not fully explained. I wanted to take those threads and elaborate on them, and think about ways to tie them together,” adds the filmmaker.
Pet Sematary: Bloodlines is set in 1969, but the underlying themes of disillusionment are especially relevant today. “I think that the sixties is such a sister decade to what we’re going through now. We’re very much experiencing global mass disillusionment, but also there’s a counterculture rising, and I think that it makes that period very relatable,” she continues.
Jud Crandall (Jackson White) Photo by Philippe Bosse/ Paramount Players
Mythology, World, Tone & Theme
“The Pet Sematary is not simply a place where people are buried and come back. I understand thematically, it’s a place where kids learn about death. It’s our gateway into facing mortality and accepting it. There’s such an importance to the concept.”
Lindsey Anderson Beer worked backwards to explain the mythology of why the cemetery might exist. “I started to do more research into indigenous and Norse mythology because Nordic people would have already visited the area [Ludlow] by the 1600s.” They are noted for channeling animal spirits for protection. Beer considered how those settlers might have done that.
Thematically, Pet Sematary: Bloodlines poses the moral question of whether we should raise the dead at the expense of the living, even if it’s someone you love. This is the curse that plagues Ludlow.
Despite her relative creative freedom, Beer felt obliged to honor Stephen King’s original vision for Pet Sematary. “I honored that ethical question of what you do for somebody you love who’s died, but also honored the tone of the book.”
The screenwriter doesn’t want to prescribe an answer to the moral question posed in the story. “I personally don’t think that there’s a right or wrong answer. I write more to theme and I want to make sure that whatever the character’s journey is, that it expresses that theme, and it trickles through in every aspect of the storytelling.” Much like art, she prefers to inspire a conversation rather than dictate a discourse.
Genre
“Bloodlines is a character drama amid a mishmash of genres in King’s novel. It’s scary, but it doesn’t become a horror story until halfway through the book. It also has these pops of dark humor throughout it. So, trying to hit the tone of the book is something I was always striving for. But then, it being a prequel, I felt more leeway to do my own thing while still honoring the general vibe of Pet Sematary,” she elaborates.
It ostensibly slots into the supernatural realm. “In all its incarnations, it’s also so scary because it leans into terror, not just as an acute experience of horror or violence, but as a long drawn out dread of what’s going to happen,” explains Beer.
This creates a unique parallel dynamic when it’s married to themes of war. “I was trying to mimic the cadence and experience of war as much as possible to make it Jud’s war because has to fight his own war. So much of war isn’t about action, it’s about waiting… the dread, balanced with frenetic, terrifying bursts of actual fighting.” Furthermore, there’s also the fear of the possibility of losing people. Jud survives, but we’re unsure if his loved ones have.
The underlying dread of death is presented in the town of Ludlow through the still beauty imagery of rural Maine. “It’s set in the sixties in the sunshine with all the beautiful yellows and the sunflowers. And then, we twist that into something ominous and eerie which contrasts against the nostalgia and innocence with the tearing away of childhood innocence,” adds Beer.
Lindsey Anderson Beer. Photo by Gonzalo Marroquin/ Getty Images for Paramount+
Closely related to the sense of dread are the thriller aspects of the film which modulate tension and suspense. “Suspense is just the broader overall feeling of anticipation. Tension is a bit more physical,” continues Lindsey. It all feeds into the overall consideration of crafting dread, intention, and scares.
“It’s quite precise and sometimes takes experimentation in the editing room. But for me, it’s about the unexpected and whether that means you’re holding longer onto a shot, so you get lost in the moment before you surprise somebody, or you let the audience see something that the character doesn’t see. There are a lot of different tools in the chest, but the problem is they can’t all be used all the time because those tricks wear so thin so quickly.”
Since audiences have seen most scares before, it’s increasingly difficult to surprise and shock them. “That’s why it’s especially important to care more about the characters and their fates.”
On Being A Writer/ Director
Lindsey Anderson Beer wears two hats for Pet Sematary: Bloodlines. “A lot of writer/ directors write very sparse screenplays because they have it in their heads and they know they’re going to direct them. If I am directing something, I write so much cinematography, so much specific stuff about the production design, and how something should be edited, because when I’m writing, I’m all in all in the moment.” Naturally Lindsey excludes all those details if she’s simply writing a screenplay for another director.
Beer lost count of how many drafts Of Bloodlines she wrote. She rewrote Jeff Buehler’s original script, and at one point, was submitting two drafts to the studios weekly. “We were greenlit in May after being hired in March and I was still writing all through production and doing the ADR and stuff for post. The studio wanted to keep a similar structure to Jeff’s script, but there was so much that was changing within the scenes, so I was trying to make the changes work within that structure.”
“I brought in Donna (Isabella LaBlanc) and Manny Rivers (Forrest Goodluck). Manny existed as more of a comic relief sidekick, and Donna didn’t exist before. It was very important to me to create an indigenous point of view in this movie. There’s a scene with this brother and sister having this important conversation and it illustrates the sweet relationship between them when he says, ‘Is there an expiration date on you being my bossy sister?’ They’re sweetly dancing, and then it devolves into a scene that becomes incredibly tense and creepy. I didn’t want the horror to end at the expense of real character moments and showing what these kids coming of age at the end of the sixties and being disillusioned in different ways.”
Bill Beterman (David Duchovny) Photo by Philippe Bosse/ Paramount Players
“Then there’s the idea of the pact and the conspiracy I wanted to explore. It was very important that Bill (David Duchovny) was a sympathetic character. In Jeff’s draft, Bill was much more of a straight bad guy. I wanted to make sure we felt for this grieving father,” notes the filmmaker.
“There was always a balance in terms of trying to explain mythology and progressing the story. When it’s something as intangible as evil, you can explain too much, and then the story actually makes even less sense. Conversely, you might not explain enough and confuse audiences,” she continues.
“Then there’s the self-restraint in storytelling. As a fan, there was so much interesting stuff to explore in the town and the backstory, but it had to be trimmed down to be economical.”
“I wanted the first scene in the film to show Bill Baterman dragging his son to be buried rather than having a prologue. I thought that image was so important because it immediately draws you into that ethical question of whether Bill should bring his son back to life. It’s such an intimate portrait of his decision to try to reanimate Timmy. Bill is completely alone with his decision and its consequences.”
[More: Screenwriter Jeff Buhler & Producer Lorenzo Di Bonaventura Talk “Pet Sematary”]
